I was fortunate enough recently to see England play Pakistan in the one day cricket international at The Rose Bowl in Hampshire.

Last year, I visited Southampton FC's St Mary's Stadium - a magnificent venue which has attracted international football matches as well as being home to a football team which is a source of fierce local pride.

Both the Rose Bowl and St Mary's were built recently and Hampshire people are rightly proud of them.

They bring pleasure to locals, income from visitors and have helped raise the profile of their host city and county.

So what about Sussex?

Sussex's cricket club has already won the C&G trophy this year and is on course for its second County Championship in three years. However, it has one of the poorest grounds in the league.

The county's only league football club, Brighton and Hove Albion, is fighting for its very existence in a small athletic stadium totally inappropriate to the club's size and stature.

Sussex Cricket Club is currently more successful than Hampshire, Surrey or Middlesex. Not long ago, Brighton and Hove Albion was at Wembley in an FA cup final. Certainly, neither is smaller than Hampshire counterparts.

Brighton and Hove Albion FC has a wonderful and longsuffering fan base, too - but the unsung community work the club carries out across Sussex is adequate reason to support their future even if one has no interest in football per se.

Cricket and football together cover the entire social spectrum.

It is surely incumbent on our leaders to encourage all the major sporting clubs and facilities in their area and yet, in Sussex, the opposite seems true.

Those who have the power to provide should look across to Hampshire and feel ashamed.

If Hampshire can do it, so can Sussex - but only if our representatives seize the opportunity and bother to care.

  • John Pitts, Woodhorn Lane, Oving, Chichester